What counts as magisterial teaching?

Popes speakinfallibly when they either proclaim some doctrine ex cathedra, or reiterate some doctrine that has already beentaught infallibly by virtue of being a consistent teaching of the ordinarymagisterium of the Church for millennia. Even when papal teaching is not infallible, it is normally owed“religious assent.”  However, the Churchrecognizes exceptions.  The instruction DonumVeritatis , issued during the pontificate of St. John Paul II,acknowledges that “it could happen that some Magisterial documents might not befree from all deficiencies” so that “a theologian may, according to the case,raise questions regarding the timeliness, the form, or even the contents ofmagisterial interventions.”  Donum Veritatis explicitly distinguishessuch respectful criticism from “dissent” from perennial Church teaching.

The clearestsort of case where such criticism would be justifiable would be if a popehimself says something that appears to conflict with the Church’s traditionalteaching.  This has happened a handful oftimes in Church history, the clearest examples involving PopeHonorius I and Pope John XXII.  TheChurch has always acknowledged that in these rare cases, it can be justifiablefor the faithful respectfully to reprove a pope.  I have written on this matter elsewhere (hereand here)and direct the interested reader to those articles.

Severaldocuments issued during the pontificate of Pope Francis have, according to hiscritics, exhibited “deficiencies” of precisely the sort Donum Veritatis says can be criticized in this way.  There is, for instance, Amoris Laetitia, which appears to allow, in some cases, absolutionand Holy Communion for those in invalid marriages who are sexually active andlack firm purpose of amendment.  There isthe 2018 revision to the Catechism, which gives the impression that the deathpenalty is intrinsically wrong when it characterizes it as “an attack on theinviolability and dignity of the person.” Most recently, there is FiduciaSupplicans, which allows for blessings for same-sex and adulterouscouples.  In these particular respects,these documents appear to conflict with the traditional teaching of the Church.

I havewritten on these controversial documents elsewhere, and what I want to addresshere is a different issue.  Suppose oneor more of these magisterial statements is indeed problematic in just the waysthe critics allege.  It seems that whatwe would have in that case is magisterial teaching that is, to borrow thelanguage of Donum Veritatis,“deficient.”  But in arecent article at The Catholic Thing,Fr. Thomas Weinandy has proposed what appears to be an alternativeinterpretation.  Commenting on Fiducia Supplicans, he suggests thatsuch deficient teaching is not truly magisterial after all, and for that reasonnot binding on the faithful.  Here is therelevant passage:

St. John Henry Newman providescriteria for judging what is true and what is erroneous doctrinal development(a “corruption”)… Newman presumed that all pontifical teaching or teaching frombishops concerning doctrine and morals is magisterial.  I propose that any pontifical teaching orteaching from bishops that overtly and deliberately contradicts the perennialteaching of previous councils and pontiffs is not magisterial teaching,precisely because it does not accord with past magisterial doctrinal teaching.

The pope or a bishop may be, byvirtue of his office, a member of the magisterium, but his teaching, if itcontradicts the received previous magisterial teaching, is notmagisterial.  Such false teaching simplyfails to meet the necessary criteria.  Itpossesses no ecclesial authoritative credentials.  Rather, it is simply an ambiguous or flawedstatement that attempts or pretends to be magisterial, when it’s not.

Endquote.  This might at first glance seemodd.  If teaching on faith or morals ispresented by the magisterium of the Church, isn’t it, by that very fact, magisterial in nature?  But it seems to me that what Fr. Weinandy isgetting at can be illuminated by way of an analogy with what St. Thomas Aquinassays about the nature of law.  Aquinasfamously distinguishes several kinds of law, the two most relevant for presentpurposes being natural law and human law.  The natural law, of course, has to do with morallybinding precepts grounded in human nature and discoverable by unaided reason.  Human law, by contrast, is man-made ratherthan discovered or grounded in nature. 

But humanlaw is necessary in order to give precision to the application of naturallaw.  For example, we can know by naturallaw that it is wrong to steal or damage someone else’s property.  But how exactly to determine what counts as another person’s property canin some cases be difficult.  For example,if someone homesteads some piece of land, how deep under the ground do hisproperty rights extend?  How much of theairspace above the land does he have a right to control?  Does he have the right to drain stormwateronto adjacent land, or to prevent it from draining onto his own?  And so on. Human law is needed in order to resolve such questions so that propertyowners can know what they can reasonably expect of one another and how toresolve disputes between them.  To theextent that human law applies and extends the natural law in such a way, it isbinding on us, just as natural law is.

However,such law is binding on us only tothat extent.  Indeed, for Aquinas,strictly speaking, it doesn’t even countas law if it is not consistent with natural law.  He writes: “Every humanly made law has thecharacter of law to the extent that it stems from the law of nature.  On the other hand, if a humanly made lawconflicts with the natural law, then it is no longer a law, but a corruption oflaw” (Summa Theologiae I-II.95.2, Freddosotranslation).  And since it is not law,it lacks the binding force of law. Suppose, for example, that some purported law was passed by Congress thatpermitted people to steal the property of those of some particular race orethnicity, or abolished private property altogether.  Because such a measure would positivelycontradict the natural law, it would on Aquinas’s analysis not count as agenuine law at all, and for that reason no one would be bound to obey it.

Law, on thisunderstanding, cannot properly be understood except teleologically, by reference to the end or purpose it serves. Human law, to be true law, must facilitate the application of the naturallaw.  Hence, when it deviates from thisend, it fails to be true law.  It is insuch a case mere pseudo-law, or atbest a failed attempt at law.  Attempting to make such laws is likeattempting to make tea but forgetting to put the teabag into the hot water, orby running the water through coffee grounds. Even if the person making it intendedit to be tea or even thinks of itas tea, the result will not in fact be tea.

Thisanalysis, as I say, gives us an analogy by which we can understand Fr.Weinandy’s thesis.  Like human law,magisterial acts have a teleology, anend or purpose for which they exist and apart from which they cannot properlybe understood.  That purpose is to conveythe deposit of faith, draw out its implications, and apply them to concretecircumstances.  When they facilitate thatpurpose, we have genuine magisterial teaching. But should some act, even an act by a pope, be contrary to that end,then the result cannot be a genuine magisterial act, any more than a human lawthat contradicts the natural law can be a true law, or any more than hot waterrun through coffee grounds can be true tea.

Suppose, forexample, that a pope were to teach that Christ had only one will, as PopeHonorius appeared to do in the letter that led to his condemnation for aidingand abetting the Monothelite heresy.  OnFr. Weinandy’s interpretation, the correct thing to say is not that this was agenuinely magisterial act, albeit one that was in error.  The correct thing to say is that this was not a genuinely magisterial act, butrather at best a failed attempt atcarrying out a magisterial act.  It was akind of misfire, because a truly magisterial act always facilitates conveying thedeposit of faith, and Honorius’s act did the contrary of that.  In Fr. Weinandy’s view, the novel teaching inFiducia Supplicans is anothermisfire, an attempt at a magisterialact that fails insofar as it is contrary to the deposit of faith.

I wouldsuggest that yet another way to understand Fr. Weinandy’s position is that heis, in effect, interpreting the word “magisterial” as what philosopher GilbertRyle called a “success word.”  A successword is a word that describes an act or state that must be successful if it isto be carried out or exist at all.  Forexample, if you can be said genuinely to have proved something or to knowit, then it must in fact be true.  Youcan’t really have known something that turns out to be false, but at most onlyhave thought that you knew it.  Nor can you prove something that is false,but at most only try to proveit.  By contrast, “believe” is not asuccess word, because you can believe something even if it is in fact false.

“Magisterial,”on this interpretation, is also a success word. If some thesis is in fact contrary to the deposit of faith, then itcannot be genuinely magisterial, any more than a false statement can be knownor proved.  At most it can wrongly be thought to be or intended as magisterial, just as you can think you know or intendto prove something that is in fact false.

If it seemsbold to say that the Church can in some cases attempt a magisterial act and yetfail, it is worth pointing out that there is a sense in which Fr. Weinandy’sthesis is actually less bold thanwhat Donum Veritatis itselfsays.  For again, Donum Veritatis says that it is possible for “magisterial documents”and “magisterial interventions” to be “deficient” even with respect to their “contents,”and not just their form or timeliness, and for that reason open to legitimate criticismby theologians.  This seems to imply thata thesis can be genuinely magisterialand yet nevertheless mistaken and open to correction by the faithful.  Fr. Weinandy’s positon, by contrast, impliesthat a genuinely magisterial act cannot be mistaken or open to suchcorrection.  Whatever one thinks of hisposition, it is hard to see how it is in any way less respectful of magisterialauthority than Donum Veritatis is.